| Red Road Flats | |
|---|---|
| Red Road flats at Balornock - geograph.org.uk - 119968.jpg The eight Red Road towers, looking in a north easterly direction. |
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| General information | |
| Status | Completed, scheduled for demolition 2011-2016 |
| Type | Residential |
| Architectural style | Brutalist |
| Location | Balornock, Glasgow, Scotland |
| Completed | 1969 |
| Height | |
| Roof | Point Blocks=89.0 metres (292 ft) Slab Blocks=79.0 metres (259 ft) |
| Top floor | 31 |
| Technical details | |
| Structural system | Steel Frame |
| Floor count | Point Blocks = 3 Slab Blocks = 28 |
| Elevator count | Point Blocks = 2 Slab Blocks = 3 |
| Design and construction | |
| Owner | Glasgow Housing Association |
| Architect | Sam Bunton |
| Developer | Glasgow Corporation |
The Red Road Flats are a high-rise housing complex which lies between the districts of Balornock and Barmulloch in the north east of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It consists of eight multi-storey blocks. Two are "slabs", much wider in cross-section than they are deep. Six are "points" — more of a traditional tower block shape. The slabs have 25-32 floors, the points 31, and taken together they were designed for a population of 4,700 people. The point blocks are among the tallest buildings in Glasgow at 89 metres (292 ft), second in overall height behind the Gallowgate Twins (109 Bluevale Street/51 Whitevale Street) in Camlachie, but still hold the record for the highest occupied floor level of any building in Glasgow, and the roof of the point blocks are the tallest man made point above sea level within the city boundaries.
Views from the upper floors draw the eye along the Campsie Fells to Ben Lomond and the Arrochar Alps, then west past the Erskine Bridge and out to Goat Fell on the Isle of Arran continuing south over Glasgow and East towards Edinburgh.
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After the publication of the Bruce Report in 1946, Glasgow Corporation identified Comprehensive Development Areas (CDAs), which were largely inner-urban districts (such as the Gorbals, Anderston and Townhead), with a high proportion of overcrowded slum housing. These areas would see the mass demolition of overcrowded and insanitary tenement slum housing, and their replacement with lower density housing schemes to create space for modern developments. The dispersed population would be relocated to new estates built on green belt land on the outer periphery of the city's metropolitan area, with others moved out to the New Towns of Cumbernauld and East Kilbride. These initiatives began to be implemented in the late 1950s. Barlornock was one of the green belt areas that had hitherto little development prior to the construction of the Red Road estate. The original plans for Red Road were far more modest than the high-rise scheme that would ultimately emerge – it called for a complex of maisonettes no taller than 4 storeys. however, what emerged, designed by Glasgow Corporation architect Sam Bunton - conceived the scheme to house a population of 4,700 people, the 25 and 31 storey tower blocks were at the time the highest in Europe.[1]
Contemporary critics of the scheme accused Bunton - who was close to retirement at the time - for championing the development as a personal vanity project; he was well known within Glasgow Corporation as a strong proponent of high-rise housing; his practice having designed other similar multi-storey flats around the city. Politics would shape the design of the buildings in other ways - Glasgow's steel making industries had profited little from the post war building boom inspired by the Bruce Report, therefore the American-style steel frame construction system was used for the towers, rather than the French pre-fabricated concrete panel system which had been used for all other tower blocks built in the city up until that point. This would leave one of the estate's long lasting legacies - steel construction had to be fire-proofed, which meant the use of deadly asbestos, a legacy which would blight the estate in the coming years.
For most of the early residents, living in the flats meant a considerable and welcome rise in their living conditions, since most had previously lived in much worse housing, often severely overcrowded, either nearby or elsewhere in the city. From the time they were built until recent years, they were owned by the local authority.
During the original construction, large amounts of asbestos were used in order to ensure the structural integrity of the buildings' steel frames in the event of a fire.[2]
Two decades later it became widely known that the use of this material caused a number of illnesses and deaths, however the asbestos was integral to the structure of the buildings and could not be removed until the buildings were demolished.[3] This has created significant challenges to the demolition process and a slab of asbestos was dropped from a significant height onto a nursery in June 2011.[4]
As depression set in by the mid-1970s, the estate gained a reputation for anti-social crime, ranging from disaffected youths throwing objects from the roofs and frequent burglaries. Such problems were less severe than those evident in parts of the city such as the nearby low-rise Blackhill estate, long dominated by ruthless crime gangs. But they were able to strike a nerve in the perceptions of non-residents, owing partly to the "looming" ambience of the blocks which in some ways might even be called emblematic. The slab blocks, for example, are not only 25 storeys high but also almost 100 metres wide.
Around 1980 the authorities declared two of the blocks unfit to live in, and transferred them for use by students and the YMCA respectively. These happened to be the blocks closest to the front of the complex when approached from the city centre. Being nearest the bus stop, they were also easiest to locate for those who were new to the city, to Scotland, or to the UK as a whole — as many of the YMCA guests and college students are. Some blocks received coloured steel cladding around the same time.[5] All occupied flats other than those in the two front blocks continued to house tenants of the local authority.
Measures were introduced in the 1980s which gave residents increased protection. These included the control of access through the communal entrance doors by means of RFID keys and intercoms, and the installation of round-the-clock concierge facilities. The level of anti-social crime fell dramatically.
By the turn of the 1990s residents included a number of refugees from Kosovo. Today people also live on the estate who have fled from countries elsewhere in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
The position changed dramatically in 2003 when the flats were transferred, after a ballot, to a housing association en masse in the shape of the Glasgow Housing Association Ltd. The practice of transferring housing stock from public to private ownership had initially been launched in the 1970s as a flagship policy promoted by the Conservative Party. At that time, the recipients were individual tenants who opted to buy their homes, or long-term leases thereon. Twenty years later the policy was enthusiastically backed in a more wide-ranging and collectivist form by Glasgow's Labour Party council, which transferred its entire housing stock to a single company set up for the purpose. This change amounted to the largest transfer of public-sector housing stock that had ever taken place in Western Europe. Local authority publicists promised tenants that following transfer the carrying out of necessary repairs would be expedited.
Soon the new landlords as well as the council insisted that repairs were costing more than receipts in rent, and that big changes therefore had to be made. This was very different from what they had said prior to privatisation. At that time, they made no linkage between expected rental income and the making of repairs. At no time did they state that the landlords' financial income would have any bearing on tenants' rights to live in accommodation which was publicly owned, publicly subsidised, and properly looked-after.
In 2005 Glasgow Housing Association announced its intention to demolish one of the tallest blocks as part of a regeneration of the area.[6][7]
The housing scheme was featured in the 2006 film, Red Road, which won a BAFTA and the Prix de Jury (third prize) at the Cannes film festival.
The landlords and their publicists, together with players in the commercial property business, as well as the council, describe the flats (and therefore those who want to keep their homes) as being of the past, and (lucrative) 'development' as being of the future. Cultural figures celebrate the use of an atmospheric cinematic location.
Meanwhile, thousands of people continue to live there, among whom there is considerable opposition to the plans to demolish their homes. As one manifestation of this, the Save Our Homes group seeks to ensure the scheme's continued existence.[8] This is part of a growing movement to defend council housing in Britain.[9]
However, all the eight buildings are planned for phased demolition beginning in the spring of 2010 and expected to be accomplished within a decade.[10][11]
On March 7, 2010, the Serykh family, three Asylum seekers, jumped to their death from one of the towers.[12] These deaths galvanised much in the way of action in and around the Red Road.
Various projects now exist to document the end of the flats positively, with the hope that everyone with memories of the flats will contribute actively to the projects as best they can.
On March 14, 2010 "The Sunday Times" in Scotland carried an article entitled "The Rise and Fall of Glasgow's Red Road.[13] That article features the recollections of Glasgow born film-maker, Matt Quinn, who grew up in the flats.
Clydeside TV have now commissioned a film with the working title of "Skyscraper We'ans"[14] that intends to pay tribute to the positive aspects of growing up in the Red Road. This film is to date entirely self-financed without any kind of sponsorship or external commission.
Glasgow Life, a part of the city authorities, have an ongoing project to document the Red Road experience [15] this features 'specially commissioned photography, film and even a novel to celebrate life in 'the scheme'. On March 15, 2010 this was updated to include volume 1 of "Your Stories" which features the recollections of the area by various local people.
From February 19 - June 27, 2010 the Red Road flats featured in the "Multi-Story" exhibition at Glasgow's Gallery Of Modern Art (GOMA) [16] Multi-story is a collaborative arts project based in the Red Road, established in 2004 by Street Level Photoworks in partnership with The Scottish Refugee Council and the YMCA.